The Miracle Of Light

There has been a lot of experimentation with light lately. To many of us it seems nice to learn more about it, but it doesn’t seem to be of any real value to us. For those of us who feel this way, we could probably not be more wrong. There is a lot of talk by scientists stating they feel learning more about light will lead to some really precise diagnosis devices for doctors, but they also believe it won’t stop there. When I first heard that light was slowed down to almost a stop, I realized if we get light to travel this slow there is a couple of ramifications we should think about. The first one is what can be slowed down might be able to be speeded up. Perhaps we are on the cusp of figuring out warp speed. That is speed where light is sped up and used to propel a spacecraft. We may have to go through innumerable steps first such as getting light engines which will let us get near that speed. There are many problems to overcome in this area which seem almost insurmountable right now, but so did human flight at one time.

One of these problems would be the very low thrust from light. I imagine it might be similar or less than what comes out of an Ion engine. Because of this it takes a long time to build up speed, so an engine like this, if we had it, would be better served on long voyages where it has a chance to build up this kind of speed. The second thing which comes to mind is the fact if we can slow down light, how do we know it doesn’t happen in nature? If it does, some of the distances we think exist between stars might be much further away because the light might be taking longer to reach us. The same might be true in reverse. Perhaps there are parts of space which speed up light so some of the objects we believe to be a certain distance from us are really closer. We use the “red shift” of light to determine what objects are speeding away from us and how far they might be. Sometimes the result is puzzling. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen and maybe it is caused by the change in speed of light for some reason.

Engineers and scientists are working feverishly to make breakthroughs in the field of light, they see all sorts of potential. When I talk about diagnostic devices let me explain the kinds of things they are talking about. One of these incredible things is manipulating light waves so they can see through our skulls and watch our brains function. The thing about this is it would probably eliminate the use of X-rays which would be much better for us, unless we find certain types of manipulated light can be dangerous. The experts believe there are all sorts of uses for light manipulation and many more will be discovered as time goes by. I am sure we will find the military looking for uses of light manipulation and even trying to weaponize it. This is what they do. As I write this biologists are working on developing a new type of microscope where altered light waves will allow someone to look much deeper into tissue so they can observe molecular-scale activity. Once this is perfected it is thought it will cause a revolution in the detection of disease.

Some scientists are working on using light-sensitive proteins from algae which can be attached to neurons in the brain so they observe certain parts of the brain and even control them with the target being the understanding and curing of Parkinson’s disease. There is even talk of developing light sensitive tags for different types of diseases so they can be readily identified. I don’t know how this would work, but it is one of the scientific goals. I think many of us realized there was a lot more to light when we began to experiment in invisibility and succeeded in bending light around an object. This changed the entire way we view light. Sorry this sounds like a pun. If we ultimately are able to control light and even to speed it up, will we ultimately be able to speed up the light coming toward our planet thus enabling us to see objects in a much closer time frame? When we look at objects now we are seeing all of them as they looked in the past. Even the sun’s light is about 8 minutes behind. If the sun blew up we wouldn’t see that explosion for about those 8 minutes. There is not ONE object we see in real time, not even the moon but because of its closeness the light that reaches us is only a little over a second behind.

One of the things I hope we don’t do is develop some sort of battlefield weapon which will blind everyone. It is sad to think this might even be considered, but one has to be a realist. Modified light may turn out to allow us to build much better detection devices for the military. It just might turn out modified light will be able to defeat the invisibility devices which are being developed. It might also be a better alternative to radar and sonar, only time will tell. If we can build a device which uses light to penetrate the ocean we might be able to see submarines and prevent them from hiding from us. The same is true for planes and missiles.

One thing which hasn’t been discussed is the capability to add something to the light. Will we be able to add particles or atoms to light beams to repurpose them? Perhaps we are looking at the very first stages of building a transporter? Maybe certain types of light will be able to replace some of the drugs we take today.
Wouldn’t it be nice if someone had a certain disease and instead of taking all sorts of medicine and probably eventually dying, they could be exposed to a certain type of light which would cure their disease by targeting those areas which cause the disease and destroying them, or just rendering them harmless? It just might turn out that light manipulation might be the next frontier and because of it the human race could advance centuries in just a matter of years.